Golf is a popular recreational sport and various devices are known in the prior art to assist users in practicing their golf swing when not playing on a traditional golf course. The most common practicing method is to practice hitting balls from an artificial tee on a practice mat at a driving range for example. Driving ranges however typically require considerable space and management of a large number of golf balls to be repeatedly teed by a user practicing a golf swing. To minimize the repetitive teeing of golf balls and the management of a large number of golf balls to be collected, it is known to simulate a golf ball by providing a target device which is contacted by a golf club during a practice golf swing instead of contacting a golf ball. Various such target devices for practicing golf swings are disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. No. 5,451,059 by Weis, U.S. Pat. No. 1,979,795 by Clark, U.S. Pat. No. 6,569,026 by Weis, U.S. Pat. No. 7,037,218 by Lubosco et al., U.S. Pat. No. 2,490,409 by Brown, U.S. Pat. No. 1,881,991 by Yaggi, U.S. Pat. No. 1,784,363 by Lester, U.S. Pat. No. 1,753,654 by Hanson, U.S. Pat. No. 1,733,767 by Yaggi, U.S. Pat. No. 1,363,446 by Vogel, and U.S. Pat. No. 1,191,444 by Lott.
In all instances in the prior art the target to be contacted by the club head is either i) insufficient in mass or improperly configured to accurately represent striking a golf ball, or ii) alternatively if the target well represents a golf ball, the target is not sufficiently moveable once impacted by the club to represent the release of a golf ball from the club during an actual golf swing.